12 June

You can have all the things you've ever wanted, all that you have strove for and dreamed of... Yet at the end of the day, you feel empty inside. Empty and sad, empty yet the tears flow like there is a boundless source deep down inside...

A little to eight at night, and I was in the metro heading home. I looked around me, and somehow the world felt heavy with emotions (it'd been raining more or less the whole day). It was a busy day, did lots of work, and spent a lot of time on the phone with my agent, with the mortgage broker, with the bank, and with a friend, trying to finalise the last nail that would solidify the  acceptance on the condo I saw and agreed to buy last weekend. A long week of emotions, paperwork, and it came to be. The deed has been done. I also spent some time making arrangements to visit a friend's parents (the mother had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and I waned to visit and give her a boost of support... in a way, like I used to with my own mother).

So in many ways, many emotions and new experiences, new territory this week. And on top of it all, this morning, while scrolling through facebook (I know, bad habit in the morning, but I do it mostly for the news and to know what's been happening since I "signed off" a few hours earlier). And there was that picture. That famous, or infamous, picture. Of me sitting next to mum at the hospice. Me holding her hand, one that had tubes and tape on. Me with a graduation cap, carrying a forced, forced smile. Mum looked tired, thin, and frail... Maybe I should not have taken that picture, she didnt look too well. But the nurses were so happy to see me, they seemed to have heard much about me. And I wanted to capture that moment at that moment. A moment of joy for my mother, a moment of pride, and perhaps even relief for my mother. I , the prodigal son, had returned and had finally graduated. 

It was to be my last return to her side. 

She would take her leave around two weeks later.

How it seemed to be all so well timed.

That picture stayed with me most of the day, even though my mind was chatting with my friend's mother and firming plans to visit, even though my mind was calculating interest rates and monthly payments, even though my mind focused on the ITU and regulation of radio frequencies and protecting them from unlawful interference... my mind was etched with that moment three years ago. 

A friend commented "It has already been 3 years? Time has flown". In a way, yes... unbelievable. But in many ways, time has passed by at times, particularly in the first year, particularly at night when (as we say) "the night is deep and people are quiet", when I have to muffle the sounds of my own sobbing so as not to stir the world. Time has indeed flown. But there are grueling, painfully emotionally and longing moments what I wished time would pass even quicker so that I do not have to feel the pain and loss so much more. As my friend's mother said on the phone to me, "You will always feel it, it stays with you". She lost her father suddenly some forty years ago, and it still is difficult. 

I'm not sure how I will get by the next week, or the week after that when I am going to see mum at her final resting place. I have so much to tell her. So much has happened since I saw her last, since we parted three years ago. No longer a fresh graduate, I am a "prof" now... no longer so directionless and lost, I am slowly making my path and found a place where I am somehow feel so comfortable to call "home" (even though I have yet to sleep or live there)... 

How I have grown, have struggled to stand still and stand tall, though at times, like earlier tonight when I got home, when I lay down next to my cats (how blessed I am to have two wonderful cats...) I just curl up in a ball and cry... Just let the tears flow out of me like there is no end to the saltiness and to the tears of pain and longing. 

When I look at the pictures of my mum, I am reminded of how much I miss her, of how kind she was, of how caring she was as a mother, as my rock, my support and my guide in life. She is in a better place now, I know that. Anywhere is better than those last few months in the hospital, those bouts of vomiting and sickness, those treatments and sessions and appointments... Anywhere is better than then, than those dark, heavy and uncertain days. I know so. I know for sure. 

What has happened in the past year? What have I done? I ask myself that, and I struggle to find an answer in the same way I have been struggling to find joy, find meaning and a reason to really smile.

People have questioned why I still am "this way", why I withdraw, why I still cry. I have even been questioned on why I am making a big deal out of the one year anniversary and even the purpose of flying home to commemorate my late mum. I have no real answers, and perhaps there are no answers for loss and grief are such personal experiences. Experience loss, real loss, and one may come close to knowing really why. Experience loss, and maybe one will come close to feeling a void as vast, endless and empty as the world looks like from a jetliner at 35,000 feet.
12 June 2013.

 

 But there are moments.

There just are moments I feel so weak, so prone to tears. There are moments when I just break down all over again. 

But I know I will stand up again. And again.